Viscera (chor. Liam Scarlett, mus. Lowell Liebermann)
Afternoon of a Faun (chor. Jerome Robbins, mus. Debussy)
Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux (chor. Balanchine, mus. Tchaikovsky)
Carmen (chor. Carlos Acosta, mus. Bizet, arr. Yates)
Robert Clark, piano
Fiona Kimm, mezzo-soprano
Royal Opera Extra Chorus
Artists of the Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Emmanuel Plasson
Martin Yates (Carmen)
It was high time the Royal Ballet ventured to broadcast one or more of their mixed bills; they must constitute around 50% of the company's output every season. Up to this year, however, they have played safe with the full-length story ballets, at the risk of repeating some productions (though with different casts) at too-close intervals. This season, however, there's an Ashton double-bill to come in January, and this quadruple-bill, certainly chosen because tonight was Carlos Acosta's final performance in the main auditorium at Covent Garden as a Principal of the Royal Ballet.
The evening began with Viscera, by Liam Scarlett, who, at 29, is one of the fast-rising stars of British choreography. He is also Artist in Residence with the Royal Ballet at present, and has created several works for them, but Viscera is an abstract ballet created in 2012 for Miami City Ballet, and set to Lowell Liebermann's Piano Concerto No. 1. This is a high-octane piece, the outside movements bursting with energy, with the piano part almost a perpetuum mobile, framing a cool and tranquil central movement. Scarlett's choreography matches this well, with sharp feet and legs contrasting with supple arms, well suited to Laura Morera as the soloist in the outer movements, and constantly shifting patterns in the groups, while the slow movement is a long, thoughtful pas de deux (Marianela Nuñez and Ryoichi Hirano) with more than a touch of mystery to it. It's a strong work, there's a suggestion of Balanchine about it at times (and the music has distinct echoes of Stravinsky), but nothing undue, and generally it's more muscular in style, especially when performed with the crisp precision and vigour seen tonight.
Two pas de deux followed; Balanchine's Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, ever a gala favourite, and before that, Jerome Robbins's Afternoon of a Faun. Debussy's Prelude à l'Après-midi d'un Faune was never intended for the ballet, it was simply a musical response to a Verlaine poem, but Nijinsky made something of a succès de scandale out of it, adhering closely to the subject matter of the poem. Robbins pays no mind to the Verlaine (although he does explicitly refer to Nijinsky's choreography at one point), instead creating a strange, dream-like duet for two young dancers who meet by chance in a dance practice room, where the fourth wall, the mirrored one, is the auditorium. The two dancers are constantly looking out towards the audience, we are their mirror, and they study themselves and each other in the mirror, assessing line and position, how they blend together, how they move apart, and using the mirror/audience to look at each other rather than doing so directly. In one sense, it's very narcissistic, in another, it's touchingly fragile, and the end result is a pas de deux of haunting, subtle loveliness. Sarah Lamb and Vadim Muntagirov were the almost inhumanly beautiful pair.
The Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux is an altogether less complex affair, a piece of pure, virtuoso dancing, with one purpose only in mind, to entertain. It's not Balanchine in ultra-classical mode; he adheres to the classic format of the pas de deux - adagio, male variation, female variation, coda - but the steps are distinctly his own, no pastiche of Petipa here. He used an "outtake" from Swan Lake, a pas de deux originally designed for Act 3, and fireworks duly ensue. As always, with Balanchine, precision is absolutely essential, never mind anything else, and I was not completely happy with Iana Salenko's variation, feeling that there was something just a little off in her timing, but her partnership with the effervescent Steven McRae was sound enough, and he himself was in fine form.
Carlos Acosta is unquestionably one of the finest male dancers on the planet; if he is leaving the Royal Ballet as a Principal, I do not think this means his dancing days are quite over yet, simply that he wishes to pursue other projects. Unfortunately, his choreographic talents do not match his terpsichorean ones. The Don Quixote he created for the Royal Ballet in 2013 was reasonably successful, but he was modelling it very extensively on Petipa. This new version of Carmen is a different matter, and it was a somewhat disappointing conclusion to this otherwise excellent mixed bill.
The first problem, and for me, the biggest one, was the music. Bizet's score has been arranged and orchestrated by Martin Yates, and quite frankly, he has made a dog's breakfast of it. I don't mind pieces being out of order, and I don't mind re-orchestration in principle. However, what we got here was a dreadful mishmash, including chorus, solo singers, flamenco guitar and Cuban drums. The text, where there was some, was translated into Spanish, and I do not know where the translations came from, but they did not fit the music - surely something better could have been found? There was a lot of percussion, some of the arrangements very audibly inspired by Shchedrin's witty "Carmen Suite", and the chorus at the beginning and near the end in particular was meretricious, Hollywood shlock, over-egging the pudding in the worst possible way. The piece lasts a shade under an hour, and having to spend most of that time cringing at the music was a terrible distraction from the dancing.
Acosta has taken the position that Don José is a victim of Carmen's wiles. Here, she shows no interest in him until she seduces him to get out of jail, and again to get him to join the smugglers. Then there's quite a good pas de deux, and the next thing you know, she's being swept off her feet by Escamillo, who comes on like Mick Jagger, with toothy grin and swivel hips - Federico Bonelli rather enjoying himself as a pseudo-rock star. Marianela Nuñez, all leg and attitude as Carmen, danced beautifully, as usual, as did Acosta, but Acosta has, to my mind, misunderstood his characters. She was too flighty, and José too apathetic, unconvincing in his reactions.
The thing about Carmen is that she's attracted to bad boys, and while José might not look like one on the surface, deep down he is - in fact, he's a lot more dangerous than she even realises, and she ends up biting off more than she can chew when she encourages him to lose his inhibitions. Nevertheless, it's that element of danger that must come through - in Escamillo, it's obvious, and he has a perfectly adequate outlet for it, the arena, but in José it turns to murderous rage. I had a hard time believing that this José could get sufficiently wound up for that. The staging is dramatic enough, but with a Carmen whose personal code is never made clear, and a José who remains a wimp till the last possible moment, even those bits of choreography that I did like could not lift the piece up enough. Then there was the stylistic jumble, part classical, part modern dance, part flamenco, part something like salsa, I think, to match the musical jumble. Acosta is trying to make it accessible by blending styles; maybe it's the mess the music's in that makes it too much for me, but despite a couple of decent moments (Escamillo's entry, the second pas-de-deux), I found his Carmen more pretentious than anything else.
I can understand Acosta wanting to leave the Royal Ballet something personal, and creating a piece for them is a good way of doing that, but this Carmen is too flawed, not to mention that it's going to be too expensive to be produced elsewhere, what with all the extra musicians required. We will remember him for the superlative dancer he was, and mostly still is, and see if he can eventually hone his choreographic aspirations into something effective some day.
[Next : 16th November]
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